Need to Know: Bruins Return Home Aiming to Snap Skid

BOSTON – The Bruins will be back on home ice on Thursday night when they host the Dallas Stars at TD Garden. Boston will be aiming to snap its two-game skid after dropping the final two contests on the Western road trip.

“We have an opportunity tonight to bounce back and start understanding the way we need to play to be better,” Bruins captain Brad Marchand said following morning skate at Warrior Ice Arena. “We looked at some video today to see areas we can improve upon. It’s an opportunity for us to work at that and get better. You can’t get stuck looking in the past, things we can’t change.

“It’s about looking forward and understanding things that we need to be a little bit better at and start working towards each day.”

Bruins coach Jim Montgomery added that he is most concerned about the team’s process and making sure that is shored up as the team gets through its early-season struggles.

“I’m a process-oriented coach and there’s certain things that drive results,” said Montgomery. “Our process isn’t really good right now…if you want your team to be consistent, I have to be consistent in my messaging. We’ve given up too many odd-man rushes and most of them are derived from turnovers. That’s not us being patient with our offensive games and we’re taking too many penalties.

“And all those things are parts of our process that lead to results and our results are our Grade A chances and we’re not hitting our numbers there right now.”

Koepke Moving Up

One of the ways Montgomery has tried to create a spark offensively is shaking up his forward lines in recent games. Boston’s bench boss is doing so again on Thursday night with Cole Koepke moving up to play the right wing alongside Trent Frederic and Charlie Coyle.

“It is hard but sometimes you need different dynamics on a line,” said Montgomery. “That [fourth] line’s been playing extremely well. We’re gonna leave two of them together, bring along somebody else with them and Koepke can add speed to another line.”

Koepke, who lead the Bruins with six points (three goals, three assists) in seven games, is looking forward to trying to replicate the success he’s had on Boston’s fourth line with Mark Kastelic and Johnny Beecher.

“It’s exciting,” said Koepke. “It’s gonne be good. They’re a couple established players and I’m just gonna go out and try to do what I can to support them and just keep playing my same game. Hopefully we can get something rolling.”

Wait, There’s More

• Justin Brazeau will take Koepke’s spot alongside Beecher and Kastelic, while Matt Poitras will shift to the right wing with Morgan Geekie on the left and Pavel Zacha in the middle.
• On the back end, Parker Wotherspoon will sub in for Mason Lohrei and play with Andrew Peeke on Boston’s third pair.
• Dallas enters Thursday night’s game at 5-2-0, which puts them two points back of the top spot in the West behind Winnipeg. Roope Hintz (three goals, four assists) and Logan Stankoven (seven assists) lead the team with seven points each, while Hintz, Matt Duchene, Jason Robertson, and Tyler Seguin all have a team-high three goals.
• Stars goalie Jake Oettinger is 4-1-0 with a 1.81 goals against average and .941 save percentage.

Thursday’s Projected Lineup

FORWARDS

Brad Marchand – Elias Lindholm – David Pastrnak

Trent Frederic – Charlie Coyle – Cole Koepke

Mogan Geekie – Pavel Zacha – Matt Poitras

Johnny Beecher – Mark Kastelic – Justin Brazeau

DEFENSEMEN

Hampus Lindholm – Charlie McAvoy

Nikita Zadorov – Brandon Carlo

Parker Wotherspoon – Andrew Peeke

GOALIES

Jeremy Swayman/Joonas Korpisalo